Research Focus
The Influence of Carbon Neutral Biofuels and Carbon Free Hydrogen and Ammonia on Aerodynamic Design of Commercial Aircraft Configurations
In efforts to combat climate change worldwide, the aviation industry faces particularly complex design challenges in designing new, CO2 emissions free vehicles. One potential solution to this problem is the use of sustainable biofuels (from sustainable feedstock), hydrogen or ammonia for fuel as a means of propulsion. Biofuels are carbon neutral and have the advantage that they do not require significant change in the propulsion system and very minor changes in the aircraft design; they are therefore called the ‘drop-in fuels’ or ‘Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF)’; they can be stored in the wing. Hydrogen fuel has many benefits over traditional jet fuel such as its three time the gravimetric energy density; however, it requires the aircraft to carry large, pressurized, cryogenic fuel tanks since it is liquid at 120psi and -250oF. The volumetric energy density of hydrogen is four times less than that of SAF. It requires major changes in aircraft design for hydrogen storage. Ammonia on the other hand is liquid at ambient temperature like SAF but has two times lesser both the gravimetric and volumetric energy density compared to SAF. Because of these properties, a significant amount of ammonia can be stored in the wing. Thus, different candidate fuels have different storage, refueling and infrastructure requirements which significantly impact the aircraft propulsion system and aerodynamic design.
This project examines the design challenges, potential solutions, and the analysis methods for the design of a medium to large range commercial airliner powered by these alternate fuels. To accomplish this goal, a comprehensive conceptual design and analysis code called WUADS (Washington University Aircraft Design Software) has been developed. WUADS employs a combination of empirical and numerical methods to analyze an arbitrarily input aircraft’s overall weight, propulsive efficiency, and aerodynamic performance. This code has been validated on several existing aircrafts with Jet A fuel to verify the accuracy of the analysis and optimization methodology of WUADS. It will be used to analyze, design and optimize several existing mid- to large range aircraft configurations such as Boeing 737-800 and Boeing 767, and Airbus 320 and 350 powered by SAF, hydrogen and ammonia. The code is user-friendly and can easily be used by an undergraduate in couple of weeks of training. It should be pointed out that the results of this project will be highly valuable to aviation industry with great interest in exploring pathways for decarbonization of aviation. Such a comparative analysis has never been conducted in the literature before.
Skills, Techniques, Methods
- How to use a computational aerodynamic analysis code
- How to process the computational data and interpret it in a meaningful manner
- Issues related to decarbonization of aviation
- Pros- and cons – of fuels and their properties for carbon free aviation
Research Conditions
The student will be assigned a workstation in CFD. He/she will be provided the software and all the tools needed to do the work. He/she will be mentored by a PhD student and PI.
Team Structure and Opportunities
The team structure will be PI, graduate PhD student and the summer trainee.
Requirements
Sophomore level physics, chemistry and math. Experience with MATLAB or any computational tool is desirable.
